A Game of Sorrows

by Shona MacLean

  I should have been ashamed that my own faith had been so easily swayed, but I could not be, and so said nothing in my defence.

  ‘Anyhow, I attended the service, and was glad to see Margaret there too, and to learn that she and you had found safe quarters in the castle. I had nothing with me – not so much as a change of clothes, and certainly no bible – and so we shared Margaret’s. Despite their poverty, she and her brothers were taught to read and write, and she has always prized her bible above all things. I wish I could have loved her.’

  ‘That might have come,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I will love only once.’ He breathed deep. ‘The psalms were strong that night, assured of God’s power in the face of all that might assault his people. They recalled the struggle of Israel with the Philistines, and gave much hope to the congregation, I think, for the days of danger to come. We shared her bible, Margaret and I, as the reader took us through the passages on which the minister was to preach. We followed him line for line as he intoned them for all the congregation. But as we turned the pages, I noticed that one was torn. It was in the Book of Exodus. Chapter 21 had been torn out.’

  ‘“Now these are the judgements which thou shalt set before them.”’

  He handed me a thin, crumpled piece of paper. Had I not been able to read it, I would have known instantly by the feel of it that it was a page from a bible.

  ‘This was the scripture you found in her pouch?’

  He nodded.

  I smoothed out the paper, and my eye was drawn instantly to the words scored under in ink: ‘“if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.”’

  Andrew continued where the passage had also been marked. ‘“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”’

  ‘Brother for brother,’ I said.

  He looked up. ‘It does not say that in the scriptures.’

  ‘No, but it might well have done. She killed Sean near the altar because she thought he was one of those who had murdered her brother, and she sought to murder me because I had told her I knew what it was to lose a brother, for Sean had been mine.’

  He sat down, his face drained of what little colour it had. ‘When did you tell her this, Alexander?’

  ‘Yesterday, in the castle kitchens. I knew she had some great hostility towards me; I wanted to build some bridge of trust, of fellowship between us, and I believed that would do it.’

  He rubbed his eyes and looked to the heavens. ‘I have been a fool, such a fool.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The very first time Margaret saw you, in her mother’s cottage – you remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘She thought for a moment you were Sean. She could not believe that I had brought him to their home. I assured her you were not, and tried to tell her he had had nothing to do with the murder of her brother. I thought I had convinced her, for she left that subject but told me I must be mistaken in you, that no two men could look so much alike who were not brothers. I laughed at her, Alexander, I was almost going to tell you, but I forgot about it soon after we left their place. And then when I heard what Stephen had told you of your mother, and Sean, and that you were his brother, I did not think of Margaret’s words but of what it meant for you. Even when I saw the torn passage in her bible, I did not realise what she was going to do.’

  ‘You could not have been expected to.’

  ‘But I should have done.’

  ‘Andrew, whatever else has happened between us, last night you saved my life.’

  ‘A moment later, and I would have been too late. I had been so certain that Murchadh had had Sean killed that I did not think to look elsewhere. I only followed Margaret last night because I was worried about her, her manner had become strange. I saw her enter the church, and thought perhaps she wished a moment’s quiet prayer. When I saw a man moving through the graveyard towards the door, I became anxious, and then when you stepped beneath the portal and I saw in the light from the door that it was you, doors began to unlock in my mind. It did not make sense that you should have an assignation, you who were so much like Sean, and she who hated him so much. Even as you walked through the door, your very walk was his. It was a moment before it came to me, a sight of something I had not seen – of Sean going through that same door on the night of his death. And then I knew. I ran through the churchyard, not caring whose bones I stood upon, and only just got to the door in time to see her lift her arm. I am sorry, Alexander. I could have stopped it if I had not been so slow.’

  He was genuinely distraught that he had not prevented the attack.

  ‘Why did you stop her?’ I managed to say at last.

  ‘Alexander…’

  ‘Would it not have been better,’ I paused to gather my strength a little. ‘Would it not have been better to have let her kill me?’

  He shook his head slowly, his face the image of incomprehension. ‘After all we had been through, even had I not been a Christian, why would I have let her kill you when I could do anything to stop it?’

  ‘Because you have doubted me for some time now, have you not?’

  He looked away and then back at me. ‘Perhaps. Yes, I have doubted you. Since Ardclinnis; before that, even. Since they took you alone to Dun-a-Mallaght. I think that was why Sean brought you to Ireland.’

  ‘I think so too, but I was never for a moment tempted to take his place. This is not my world, and these are not my people.’

  ‘Are you certain of that?’

  I had thought long and hard on this for the last few days. ‘Had I been born, raised here; had I been brought up in their faith, then yes, perhaps it would be different. But I was not; a man cannot live in two worlds; he must choose. You told me so yourself.’

  ‘And you have chosen?’

  ‘Yes, I have chosen. And I would leave here this very day, if I had the strength, but I have not yet the strength, and there is one thing I must know before I go.’

  He looked at me expectantly, as if it was from him that I waited for my answer.

  ‘The curse,’ I said. ‘Pretext or no for bringing me over here, it was real enough, its intent real enough, and much of the harm predicted in it has come to pass. It was not Margaret who was behind it, nor Cormac. Finn O’Rahilly is dead, but his patron I believe is still alive, and I cannot leave Deirdre and Macha here until I have found that person out. I owe as much to Sean, and to the love that I bear them both, and to my nephew yet unborn.’

  He laid a hand on my arm. ‘And I will be with you in that quest, Alexander. And when we have discovered who it is, and we have dealt with them, I will be here and look after those you love, long after you have returned to that other life you have chosen. But I must go to the sheriff, and tell them of Margaret, and bring these evidences to them, and then see what further orders they might have for me at the castle. Rest now, and gather your strength and your thoughts, for what it remains for us to do. Finn O’Rahilly can tell us nothing more than you already learned from him. When you are better recovered, we must plunder your mind for the answers he can no longer give.’

  Andrew left me then, and left the FitzGarrett house, a servant no more.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Curse’s Circle

  ‘Do not even consider walking through that door. I will have it bolted from the outside if you do not give me your word that you will stay in here.’

  It was the following morning, and Andrew had found me standing at the end of my bed and with intent to go further. A night’s rest in sheets rather than straw had restored enough of my strength that I could walk a few steps unsupported without fear of falling. The pain from my wound was sharper, more insistent now though. Deirdre had done what she could, but it was clear some sort of infection was setting in. Remembering one of Jaffray’s methods, when all other means were lacking, I had asked him last night for a little whisky to clean the wound, but he had
thought I was in jest, and had in a similar vein admonished me that I had been too much amongst my cousin’s associates and that abstinence from vice would do for me what drink and other things could not. I had had neither the energy nor the wit to explain to him properly, and I was paying for it now. I tugged at the bandages.

  ‘I think it has become infected.’

  He lifted the dressing carefully, and this time it was he who winced when he saw what lay beneath. ‘I will send for the doctor.’

  ‘What about my grandmother? She will know I am here.’

  ‘Word of Margaret’s death and her guilt in Sean’s murder is all around the town. Your grandmother was up much of the night, busied in commending that girl’s soul to all the punishments of the damned. She is not yet ready to acknowledge your innocence, but she will. You are safe here now.’

  The doctor arrived within the hour, and did little more than raise his eyebrows when told the cause of my wound. ‘It is in the blood, it would seem. I treated your cousin, and your uncle before him, for woundings of this nature on more than one occasion. You will be left with a scar that will more than match that on your forehead. Do not tell me that a young girl gave you that too?’

  It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about.

  ‘No, not a young girl. A powerfully-built man with a rock in his hand and an intention to embed it in my skull gifted me that,’ I said, rubbing at the deep gouge in my temple carved out by the provost of Banff, over two years ago.

  ‘Do you O’Neills never consider the peaceful resolution of disputes?’ he asked, as he steadied his hand to thread the needle that would soon be drawing together the skin at the gash in my neck.

  I attempted a smile. ‘I did not know I was an O’Neill, then.’

  Later, as darkness was drawing in, Andrew came again to see me, bringing with him a bowl of broth and some bread, ‘and the eager wishes of Deirdre and Macha to see you. Your grandmother will not hear of it. Macha she will not let out of her sight, and she holds Deirdre in scarcely less contempt than she does you.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘She blames her for the death of Cormac.’

  ‘But that is ridiculous. How could she …?’

  ‘However ridiculous, Deirdre has joined her in the certainty of her own guilt. I have tried to reason with her but she will have none of it. She says if she had but done what Maeve wanted her to do in the first place, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘She cannot believe that is true.’

  ‘More than that, she cries out about the curse, that it is her fault, that she has brought it down upon us.’

  ‘Andrew, that is madness.’

  ‘I know it is madness, but she is beyond telling. I begin to fear it might truly send her mad. She says that her only consolation is that she has seen Maeve MacQuillan, and must surely join Sean and Cormac soon.’

  ‘And my grandmother?’

  ‘She stokes the fire of her delusions, goads her on, with accusation after accusation.’

  She was engulfed in a storm, this cousin, this girl whom I had sworn to Sean and to Cormac that I would protect, and I did not know how to get her to safety; it seemed that here there was no way out for her, no possibility of shelter.

  ‘What can we do, Andrew?’

  ‘We? There is nothing we can do until we know for certain that she will allow it to be done.’

  A loud banging on the outer door beneath us interrupted our conversation. Andrew ran to look out over the machicolation and I attempted to hobble after him.

  ‘It is the Blackstones; I must alert them at the castle,’ he said, before rushing down the stairs.

  I saw that he was right. Deirdre’s husband Edward was there, and his father Matthew with him. They had in attendance a rabble of men – not the hunting party that had pursued us to Dunluce, but an ill-mounted assortment of what I thought must be brick-makers, builders, tenants, all men in Matthew Blackstone’s pay with little option but to do his bidding. The genial Englishman at whose table Andrew and I had dined a few nights ago was gone, his place taken by an enraged, blustering bull of a man. His own son looked to be in fear of him.

  ‘Let us in, you conniving whore, or I will break these doors down.’

  A servant’s voice replied. ‘You will gain no entrance here. Go back where you came from, if you value your liberty.’

  ‘Liberty? I will have no liberty; your man Boyd has seen to that with his creeping about, setting spies amongst my own men, when the greatest culprit, the greatest traitor to the king, was reared within these walls by that bog-nurtured old bitch you take your coin from.’ He turned to his men. ‘Break it down.’ And the rabble set to with a pole they had brought with them, which they began to ram with increasing force against the door.

  I left my position at the window and made my way to the stairway down to the balcony above my grandmother’s great hall. I reached the bottom just as two doors burst open – the one on the ground floor, having finally succumbed with a sickening crack and splintering of wood to the Englishmen’s blows; and the other, the small door that I knew led to my cousin Deirdre’s chamber. She appeared, pale and insubstantial, like a ghost of herself, in the doorway. I held up a hand to stop her, and taking advantage of the noise and confusion below, crossed the balcony as quickly as I could to where she stood. I did not know if she had thoughts of going down to her husband, but I could not see – in her father-in-law’s frame of mind – that any good would come of that. I took her by the arm, and began to lead her back towards the safe hiding place of Andrew Boyd’s chamber.

  We had not covered half the distance, at my halting pace, before the intruders had made their way into the house and up to the hall where my grandmother, attended only by her steward, was waiting for them. There was no sign of Eachan; he would be with Macha, protecting Sean’s unborn child. I pulled Deirdre with me behind the pillar from where I had watched my grandfather’s wake. Gone were the groaning tables, the musicians, the servants and mourners. Gone too were Sean, Cormac – Murchadh also by now, perhaps. There was only a defiant old woman, with her steward, standing in her empty hall, the glories of the past hung in faded colours all around her.

  She was the first to speak, her voice careful, soft. ‘So, Englishman, you come uninvited to my house. You must forgive my want of hospitality: I had not looked for visitors at this hour.’

  ‘Your hospitality be damned. I will have what I am owed.’

  ‘You are owed nothing. Murchadh O’Neill and his son paid you every penny that was agreed for what arms you supplied to them. And you will see not a penny more from my husband’s coffers.’

  ‘I do not talk of money, woman.’

  She raised an eyebrow, mocking even now. ‘But I have heard you speak of little else. I had not known you to concern yourself with other matters.’

  This was too much for him, and the rage he had been trying to master exploded out of him. ‘My son, you murderous bitch. My son!’

  Although the steward had moved forward a little, to stand in front of my grandmother, she herself had not so much as blinked.

  ‘I see your son beside you there,’ she said. ‘Will one lumbering oaf not do you as well as another?’

  Edward Blackstone restrained his father. ‘My brother Henry was murdered by Andrew Boyd and by your own grandson, the Scot, who masqueraded in our house in the guise of your other and took my mother’s hospitality.’

  This time a look of astonishment. ‘Your mother’s hospitality? I congratulate him most heartily on finding it; I had not thought him so resourceful. As to the question of your brother’s dispatch, I am sorry to say that neither my grandson nor Andrew Boyd can claim the credit in that. Another more honourable has cleared their names of that deed.’

  Matthew Blackstone had again to be restrained, while all courage and intent seemed to be draining from his son. The younger man’s shoulders sank, and his voice dropped.

  ‘Where is Deirdre? Where is my wife?’

  This time the old
woman actually laughed. ‘A fine specimen of a man, who does not even know where his wife is. Little wonder she went so easily to a servant’s bed.’

  I glanced at my cousin, but she seemed to be observing the exchange as a conversation between strangers.

  ‘I want you to tell me where my wife is. I must know she is safe.’

  ‘Oh, she is safe enough,’ said my grandmother, unconcernedly. ‘I have little use for her now, and she has turned her back on those she should have served. You may take her as you wish.’

  The steward glanced swiftly up to our watching place, and then towards the door to the machicolation. I put my arm more firmly around my cousin and began to move her away from the balustrade and towards the door. I heard Blackstone order his people to search the house, and the steward protest to no avail. I had only just pulled the door shut behind us when I heard the footsteps of two or three men, having taken the stairs, start to clatter on to the balcony. I tried to hurry Deirdre, but she was in little haste herself and my weakness made our progress slow. I turned halfway up the steps and saw, to my horror, the doorknob turn. I thought it was over for us both, but at that very moment a furious shouting came from out in the yard and the lower floors of the house as the castle guard stormed through the already broken door and demanded the submission of Matthew Blackstone and all who were with him. I recovered my wits quickly, and almost dragged Deirdre up the remaining steps and along the corridor to the tiny room where I thought we might be safe awhile.

  Once I had her inside, I bolted the door and pulled Andrew’s heavy chest across it before slumping down on the floor to try to catch my breath. Deirdre said nothing for a moment, looking in some astonishment at me.

  ‘Where is he, Alexander?’

  ‘He went to alert the men at the castle. I think he will be here soon; he is probably already in the house.’

  ‘My father-in-law wants to kill him.’

  ‘I know that.’